


within the protective shelter of your arms

by weasleyspotter



Series: Ward x Simmons Tumblr Prompts [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU AU so freaking AU, Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 07:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2015937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weasleyspotter/pseuds/weasleyspotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. He finds out Garrett is the Clairvoyant over the comms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	within the protective shelter of your arms

**Author's Note:**

> Look who is writing Ward x Simmons again! This is for wssummer week 10, I saw the prompt confrontation and I couldn't help myself. I got an anon message awhile back with a prompt, and this is loosely incorporated in this fic as well. Hope I'm not too rusty.

i.

He finds out Garrett is the Clairvoyant over the comms.

He hears Skye yell and scream at Garrett for working with Hydra, for being an awful person, for tricking them, and Agent Hand is swearing a calm clear voice that they won’t get away with it, and his feet are pounding in effort to reach them fast enough.

He hears the first gunshot go off, and his footsteps falter, but he doesn’t stop running as Skye shrieks over the comms.

Then there’s a second, and silence, and then heavy breathing.

He rounds the corner, just as Garrett strides out of the room. The urge to go right after him is strong, but Skye looks up at his approach. She’s cupping her bleeding stomach weakly and she raises another hand towards him.

She mumbles something but the blood pooling in her mouth garbles it.

“Save your strength,” he urges, crouching by her side, applying pressure to her wound. “You’re going to be fine.”

ii.

Fitz corners him in the hallway of the hospital.

He’s distraught and angry, but his words cut nonetheless. “We didn’t know Garrett was Hydra, and he was your S.O. How do we know you’re not Hydra either?”

He stared at Fitz mutely, unsure what to say in his defense. His word meant little in this matter, the facts were stacked against him.

Jemma slide in between both of them and stood tall under Fitz’s furious gaze. “He’s not,” she said slowly. “If he was, he would have left with Garrett. He wouldn’t have stayed behind, because he knew that he would be accused like this.”

Fitz melted a bit under Jemma’s words. “But,” he looked down the hallway, helplessly. “Skye,” he moaned, crumbled into Jemma’s waiting arms.

He stands behind them frozen, unsure what to do, before he walks away.

He doesn’t belong with them, not anymore.

iii.

It turns out that Fitz isn’t the only one who is suspicious.

He’s not surprised really. Shield is in pieces, and he’s directly related to the man at fault. He would blame himself, he does.

Coulson is nice about it though. He’s put him under light surveillance, house arrest really. He’s confined to his bunk where the team can monitor him carefully. When he leaves his bunk, another agent trials him. He’s still too valuable to keep locked up.

It doesn’t matter how much Jemma fights for him, Coulson doesn’t budge. There’s certain things that have to be done.

_Grant understands, doesn’t he?_

He does.

iv.

When her anger fades at his situation (even before it does) she visits him.

She slides into his bunk with a sandwich on a plate and a cup of steaming tea. She talks insistently as she nudges both towards him. She talks about things that she probably shouldn’t speak to him about. She updates him about Skye’s situation.

_She’s doing better, her wounds are healing well, she opened her eyes a bit today, Fitz is thrilled, he sits by her bed all the time, the Doctors’ think she’s going to make it, I always knew._

She talks about the state of Shield. She pauses after telling him about the power struggle between Coulson and May as if expecting him to jump in and give his opinion. He stays silent, picking at the sandwich.

The day that he takes a sip of tea, she smiles so widely he takes another hasty sip to keep that smile on her face. It burns his throat.

He doesn’t speak much though, just answers her direct questions.

_How are you?_ Fine.

_Did you eat?_ Yes.

_Did you get much sleep yesterday?_

He pauses at that, avoiding her gaze. He turns his eyes back to her. “I got enough,” he assures her finally.

She smiles tentatively at him, before changing the subject back to something that they found the other day.

v.

When she’s not there, he thinks about how he could have missed it.

He was nineteen year’s old when his parents finally found about his older brother’s abuse. He was in college when he got the phone call that his little brother was in the hospital because his brother went just a little too far with his punches. He almost beats himself up on the drive to the hospital because it is all his fault. He knew the truth. He knew about his older brother’s perchance for taking out his aggression physically on the nearest target. He had protected Andrew when they were younger, but he had left for college, leaving Andrew all alone.

It was his fault, he failed to protect Andrew.

When he got to hospital, his parents were huddled outside Andrew’s room, looking like their world had just been torn apart. They stood up as he walked towards him.

“Grant,” her mother clutched on to him desperately. “The police, they say that Donnie did it. They took him away. “

He shakes his mother off angrily. “Can we see him yet?” He directs at his father.

His father shakes his head mutely, his face pale as a white bedsheet.

“Grant,” his mother tries again, “Tell me Donnie didn’t do this, that it’s some big mistake.”

For a second, Grant feels a pang of pity as he looked down at his petite shivering mother. Growing up he had always wanted her to find out how Donnie really was, but now that she had, he just didn’t care anymore.

“He did,” he said shortly, glaring at her. “He’s been like that my whole life.”

His father inhaled deeply, and his mother became even more pale. “Grant,” her hand hovered over his shoulder, shaking. “I didn’t know.”

The doctor stepped out of Andrew’s room. He paused for a moment in front of them. “He can have visitors now.”

Grant nodded, heading towards the door. “You know what your problem is,” he hovered in the doorway, turning back towards his parents. “It was your goddamn job to know.”

That was his problem, he concludes, it was job to assess threats to the team, and the biggest threat was right under his nose. It was his job to know, and he failed. Again.

vi.

“Grant,” she tries one day, when she runs out of things to talk about. “You know it’s not your fault.”

His head snaps towards her. She’s sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed. In the beginning she had sat stiffly on the sole chair in his room, then she migrated to sitting stiffly on his bed, then to sitting more comfortably on his bed, he wondered if she’d lie down on his bed with more time, but he didn’t think about that much.

She tucks a stray hair behind her ear, looking uncomfortable as she spoke. “Garrett,” she says slowly, “he had us all fooled.”

“It’s different,” he says hoarsely. It’s the first sentence he’s strung together in her presence, and she doesn’t smile at that like he expects her to. “And you know it,” he finishes.

She pauses, searching for the words. “You couldn’t have seen it coming.”

“It was my job to,” he says simply, staring straight forward. “No one spent more time with Garrett then I did, I should have seen it coming. And because of my negligence,” he looks down at his hands, “Skye’s in the hospital.”

“Grant,” she says slowly, pity coloring her voice.

“Fitz is right,” he says, bitter laughter laces into his voice. “I practically helped Garrett without meaning to.”

“You did not,” she says fiercely, grabbing hold of his shoulders, forcing him to face her. “You may not have seen it coming, but that’s because you didn’t expect that of someone so close to you, none of us did. If you’re at fault, then we all are.” She grabs his face and forces it towards her. “It’s not your fault,” she says softly.

“Okay,” he says slowly, but he doesn’t believe it.

vii.

The team includes him in a few meetings where they think his expertise might help them.

It’s an excuse to make it seem like he’s not completely confined to his bunk, he has some freedom. He knows that Jemma insisted on it.

They all stare at him differently, and he knows how they feel, by just looking at him.

Fitz glares at him angrily. Coulson appraises him coolly when he walks into the room, but avoids his eyes the rest of the time. May stares at him stoically, he doesn’t know if she trusts him anymore but knows that she’s still trying to get back in Coulson’s good graces, she wouldn’t dare to speak to him.

Jemma’s the only one that regards him as a member of the team still. He’s not surprised.

She’s the only one who feels like he didn’t let them all down.

She was wrong, of course.

viii.

“I found Mike Peterson,” she announces one day, walking into his bunk without a sandwich or tea, and he instantly knows something is wrong. He sits up straighter.

“What’s wrong?”

She blows out an irritated breath. “They won’t let me follow that lead. They say it’s a waste of resources, that we should be focusing our efforts solely on Garrett. But I think if Fitz can get a look at Mike Peterson’s hardware, we might be able to disable it, maybe even trace the signal back to Garrett himself.”

That’s Skye’s expertise, neither of them mentions it.

“How far away is he?” He’s already mentally figuring out an escape plan. Even though Shield’s watching him closely, he knows that escaping the Bus is not an issue for him, it’s getting Jemma out as well.

“You’ll help me?” She sounds surprised.

“It’ll find Garrett, right?” He confirms. Her face falls a bit, but she nods nonetheless. “Then I’ll do whatever it takes.”

ix.

They slip out of his bunk without being seen. To anyone who stops them in their path, Jemma claims that she needs him in the lab for another analysis. She’s authoritative and specific, and he wonders if she’s come up with a whole backstory for why he needed another analysis. He had laughed at it before, now he admired it.

They run into trouble at the hanger though. He had planned on commandeering one of the vehicles and slipping out with her, but they get caught.

He opens the hanger door as the Bus begins to take off. “We have to jump,” he shouts over the roar of the engine. The distance isn’t that far, he judges. They could make it without any broken bones, a sprain at worse.

He turns around when she doesn’t respond, because the longer it takes, the higher they get, the worse the jump. She’s frozen stiff, staring at the open door.

He softens. “Jemma,” he says slowly, stepping towards her. “I promised I would always catch you if you fall. I won’t break that.”

She turns towards him, slightly dazed. He hold out his hand. She blinks rapidly and then takes his hand. Without pausing to let her consider her action, he scoops her up into his arms and takes off towards the open door in a run.

When he reaches the end, he leaps.

x.

They find Mike Peterson where she says he’ll be, and he’s surprised no one ever considered checking on the kid.

He’s hiding behind a bush staring at kid’s park, and when they walk up behind him. He seems to be arguing with a voice they can’t hear, and sensing the danger, Grant pushes Jemma behind him. Mike whirls on them, his eyes glowing red. Grant braces himself.

“Mike,” Jemma says slowly from behind him. “Do you remember me? It’s Agent Simmons, Jemma Simmons.”

He looks conflicted for a bit, and Grant uses the opportunity to grab him and place the specially designed handcuffs on him. They send minute shock waves that paralyze the wearer, even if Mike managed to break out, they would impair him long enough for Grant to subdue him again.

“What do you want?” Mike huffs out. “You going to kill me?”

“No,” Jemma says aghast at the suggestion. “We need your help. And we'll help you in return.”

Mike struggles for a few moments. He sighs, "Fine, what do you need?"

xi.

They remote conference with Fitz who manages to track the location of the Mike’s signal to a warehouse in Russia. He also disables Mike’s hardware.

They offer to take Mike with them, he’s a liability and Grant doesn’t want him to come, but Jemma insists on offering because he could also be an asset.

He insists they drop him off at Shield.

“Are you sure?” Jemma asks for the twentieth time, as they hover outside the building.

“I need to face the consequences of my actions,” Mike assures her. “Mind controlled or not, I did things that I’m not proud of.”

And in that moment Grant admires him. He holds out his hand for Mike to shake. “We’ll see you when we get back,” he promises.

Jemma smiles brightly up at him, as they walk away.

xii.

“I’m coming with you,” she argues.

He’s never seen her furious before, and he’s taken off guard at the sight. He’s seen her slightly upset, maybe frustrated or a bit angry, but never that furious. Her eyes are wide with rage, and she’s breathing heavily, her chest heaving up and down with each breath.

“You’re not,” he says as calmly as he can manage. Rational is on his side, he assures himself. “You’re not trained to be in the field, and I cannot compromise myself by stopping to watch your back.”

“Then wait for backup,” she counters, “then we’ll go together.”

“I can’t,” he says, “he might be gone by then. And you can’t go in there either way.”

“Why not?” She says, her voice rising in pitch.

“Because I won’t let you,” he says, losing his temper, stepping towards her.

“You can’t make me do anything.” She says crossing her arms across her chest.

He knows what he should say, he should say that technically he’s her superior and she has to listen to his orders, but instead he says, “I won’t let you, because I can’t lose you.”

Her arms fall from their crossed position, and she stares at him taken aback. “What?” She gasps out.

He feels frozen, like he can’t move even if he wanted to. He stares at her blankly, trying to form the right words to take back his declaration.

“Grant,” she says slowly, taking a step towards him.

He closes the distance and wraps her up in a kiss. She sighs into him, letting him pour all his frustration, hurt, and anger into her. They kiss for what feels like days, he can’t get enough of her, he pulls her closer and closer until she’s pulled tight against his chest. When they pull away, they’re both breathless. He leans his forehead against hers, “I love you,” he murmurs.

She inhales sharply, pulling away to look at him intently.

“I love you,” he says again, shifting uncomfortably under her gaze.

“I thought you liked Skye,” she says dumbly.

“I didn’t,” he recoils from that. “You don’t have to say anything back,” he mumbles numbly, looking away from her.

“Hey,” she interrupts, placing two arms on his. “I love you too.”

He smiles for the first time in what feels like weeks.

xiii.

He slips into the warehouse with relative ease.

“There are two men up ahead,” Jemma says quietly over the comms as he walks down the corridor.

“Got it,” he says mutely, slipping into shadows to sneak up on the men. He slams their heads together when they are sufficiently distracted and Jemma gasps in his ear at the sound.

“Where to next?” He questions her, walking away from the sight.

xiv.

Garrett is waiting for him.

“Grant,” he smiles in greeting. “It’s good to see you.”

He doesn’t say anything in response.

“I hope you’re here to join me.”

“I’m here to arrest you for treason,” he says quietly, ducking his head.

“Well we can’t have that,” Garrett tuts, backing towards the door.

“I trusted you,” he says slowly, “and you betrayed me.” He squints a bit, “You lied to me.”

Garrett raises an eyebrow. “Do you want me to apologize?”

“Garrett, it’s over,” Grant says raising his eyes to meet his old mentor’s eyes. “The place is surrounded by Shield agents.”

“It’s not over until I say it’s over,” Garrett snarls out, whirling around to face Coulson standing behind him, gun pointed square at his chest.

“I think it’s over,” Coulson muses, as Garrett slowly raises his hands over his head. “Even without you saying so.”

xv.

“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Coulson says afterwards. “We’re officially reinstating you as a specialist.” His voice grows quieter, “I’m sorry about not believing you before, I should have known better.”

He muses on that for a moment. “You were only protecting the team,” he says slowly, “I would have done the same.”

Coulson smiles gratefully at him. “I’m glad to have you back on the team regardless.”

“Actually,” he says slowly, “I’m resigning.”

Coulson stares at him blankly, “Ward,” he says slowly.

“Not Shield,” he amends, “I just don’t think I can do this anymore. I can’t fail anyone else.”

“And you think taking yourself out of the field is going to help that,” Coulson says skeptically.

“No,” Grant agrees, “but maybe I need to do this for myself.”

Coulson stares at him for another moment. “I’m sure they’ll need you over at the Academy training new recruits. Your expertise would be invaluable.”

“Thank you, sir,” he says graciously.

“No,” Coulson shakes his head, “Thank you.” He holds out his hand for Grant shake. “Grant.”

xvi.

Jemma doesn’t leave with him, and he doesn’t expect her to.

She travels around with the team in the Bus for a little longer while he stays at the Academy. He enjoys teaching, and she enjoys exploring. They make long distance work. He travels to visit her when she gets a break. She comes back to the Academy to give speeches and they hole up in his office when he’s supposed to be grading papers. They Skype, but Fitz and Skye prove to be quite a hindrance, because they take over their calls with complaints that they need to see him too, because they miss him too.  

The Bus disbands eventually. Coulson becomes Director, and he can no longer lead the team. May does it for a while, before she decides to officially retire. Fitz and Skye decide to settle down in Argentina, working with the branch there. And Jemma comes back to him.

“Wanna get married?” He suggests to her, when she turns up on his doorstep.

She stares at him openmouthed for a moment, before slapping him hard on the arm. “You didn’t even do it properly,” she whines. So he gets down on one knee and pulls out the ring he’s had for years and asks her again.

“Yes,” she squeals, slipping the ring onto her finger with shaking hands. “Of course!”

xvii.

He goes back into the field occasionally.

Every once and awhile, a mission comes to him directly from Coulson, and he doesn’t turn it down. He never accepts anything long term, though.

She stares at him strangely before he leaves, and reminds him to come home safe.

He reminds her that he has a reason to now.

She smiles at him sadly.

xviii.

He never gets over his protecting people complex, as Jemma calls it.

It gets worse when Jemma finds out she’s pregnant for the first time.

She humors him, though. She lets him fuss over her. She lets him yell at lab assistants that let her lift anything. She lets him hover over her as it gets closer to the due date.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he assures her over and over again. He spreads one hand over her stomach. “Or the baby.”

“I know,” she assures him.

xix.

The scars never disappear completely, but they fade with time.

He stops looking up the new neighbors, and greets them with a tense smile. He doesn’t bring out his weapons to clean when their daughter brings her new boyfriend home. But he does corner the asshole that dares to break her heart.

That night, he stays up with their daughter, holding her as she sobbed herself to sleep on his chest.

He looks up at Jemma helplessly when she walked in. “What do I do?” He asks her.

“She’s going to be fine,” Jemma assures him. “She has you to protect her.”  

He looks away, blinks a few times, and turns back to her with a certainty in his eyes that she’s only ever seen when it comes to her and the kids. “Yeah,” he says, looking down at his daughter with a tender expression. “You’re right.”

“I know,” she says smugly, leaning back into her chair.

“I love you,” he says softly smiling.

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always if you enjoyed please kudos and comment! Thanks!


End file.
